Desperate Measures

by Christy Barritt

  “Yeah, I’d definitely say that. A whirlwind relationship. That’s what people called it. We were married a month later.”

  “That is fast.”

  “When you know it’s the right one, you just know. Isn’t that what they say? I definitely believe it. Anyway, we got married and everything was going along great. It was the happiest time of my life.” It really had been. He’d looked forward to coming home to a warm smile every day. Alyssa had brought so much joy to his life.

  He hung his head for a moment, the crushing disappointment he felt in himself pressing on him. “There’s something you might not know about Nate and Kylie. They really feel the need to help women who might be in danger. Kylie has been there before.”

  Samantha nodded. “Kylie told me a little about her experiences.”

  John paused, the words stuck in his throat. “Alyssa was one of those women.”

  Samantha glanced down at her hands. “Even though I didn’t say a word about my past to them, I guess they sensed that I was one, too.”

  He didn’t say anything, only rubbed his chin. “Alyssa had been in a relationship with a man who’d become abusive. She’d tried to break things off, but he kept talking her into coming back to him. The talk quickly turned into threats. She was scared for her life. That’s why she fled all the way across the country.”

  “What happened?” Samantha stopped drinking her coffee and waited for him to continue.

  “We’d been married for about six months. She hadn’t heard from her ex for almost a year at that point. She’d tried to keep tabs on what he was doing by checking out his social network profiles—she used a different name, of course, so he couldn’t track her. It appeared that he was dating someone new and had moved on. We really thought it was smooth sailing ahead.” Hindsight truly was twenty-twenty. If only he’d known then what he knew now.

  Anger began coursing through him as he remembered the events after that.

  “I had to go out of town for my job. I was doing some training down in North Carolina. It was just for a few days, but I couldn’t wait to get back home. I was driving up the highway when I saw smoke in the distance. I had no idea it was coming from my home.”

  Samantha’s eyes widened. “That’s horrible.”

  He nodded. “Her ex had found her. He shot her, set the house on fire and then shot himself.”

  “Oh, John. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  He dragged his gaze to meet hers. “So now you understand why I can never be in another relationship. I let the one person I cared about the most down.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  He shook his head. “I should have been around.”

  “You couldn’t possibly always be around each other.”

  “I let her down. I told her I’d protect her, give her a new start, a safe life. What was even worse? The coroner said she was two months pregnant. Kylie told me later that Alyssa had planned this big date night when I returned where she would announce the news.”

  Samantha squeezed his knee compassionately. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you. But I thought you should know, especially with everything we’ve been through together.”

  “Now you’re afraid of being in a relationship,” she whispered.

  “I’m not afraid.” He shook his head, trying to figure out how to help her understand.

  “That’s what it sounds like to me.” Her voice remained soft. “I’m not judging. I know what it’s like to be scared. It causes you to act in ways outside of yourself.”

  He didn’t want her compassion. He wanted her understanding. “I couldn’t handle letting someone else down, Samantha. If that’s fear, then yes, I’m scared. I call it being smart.”

  She set her coffee on the table, giving him her full attention. “Funny how you keep telling me how I should tackle my problems head-on instead of running away from them, but that’s just what you’re doing.”

  “It’s different.” He shook his head.

  “Why? Because the danger I’m in is physical and the danger you’re in involves your heart?”

  Her gaze turned intense, lit with fire and challenge. This conversation wasn’t going as he’d planned. “You wouldn’t understand, Samantha.”

  “Maybe I don’t understand exactly, John, but I do understand.” She jabbed a finger into her chest. “I have a little boy whom I feel as if I’ve let down every day. I break his heart every time I move. I break his heart whenever I talk to him about his dad. I play this game with myself where I ask myself what I could have done differently. What if I’d found those books and just ignored them? What if I hadn’t confronted Anthony about them? What if I’d never run in the first place?”

  A million excuses and reasons flooded his mind. He knew he couldn’t voice any of them, though. If he did, he’d be speaking to himself, just as much as Samantha. He wasn’t ready for that. He couldn’t acknowledge that he was doing the exact same thing as he’d advised Samantha not to do.

  His situation was different.

  But was it?

  He stood, needing some time by himself. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just wanted to let you know where I was coming from. I was hoping you might understand why we would never work.”

  Samantha jumped to her feet, as well. He expected her to argue. Instead, her voice sounded strained. Her gaze looked uncertain.

  “Oh, I understand all right. The fact is that we both like each other. The other fact is that things can never work between us. You know that. I know that. If circumstances were different, maybe. But they’re not, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.”

  “You’re right,” John agreed. “We see eye-to-eye on that.”

  “At least it’s all out in the open now.”

  He paused, hating the strain that stretched between them. “Rich’s going to be on the lookout tonight.”

  “Good night, then.” Her voice sounded somber.

  He nodded. “Good night.”

  It was better this way. That’s what he tried to tell himself, at least. But his spirit felt heavier than it had...since Alyssa was murdered.

  * * *

  After John left, Samantha stoically sat on the couch. She couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, her conversation with John replayed over and over again in her head.

  Knowing now what she did about Alyssa and how she’d died made Samantha realize why John always seemed to be keeping a part of himself so distant. Maybe seeing Samantha had brought back too many memories of Alyssa. It made sense. Samantha and Alyssa had both lived above The Grill. They’d both been on the run. The similarities had to jar him.

  Why were relationships so complicated?

  Maybe she just had to find the right relationship that was worth fighting for. Because humans, by their nature, were complicated. Emotions were rarely simple.

  She remained on the couch, any hint of sleepiness gone. She listened for any sign that something was wrong outside. It was what she’d done almost every night since she’d been here on the island.

  She feared Billy coming here. She feared the police storming the cabin and arresting her. Those scenarios played in her mind. She almost welcomed the thoughts. She’d rather think of them right now than John. Because when she thought of John, she began longing for forever, and forever wasn’t a possibility. She hadn’t even realized that she might have entertained those thoughts. She’d known the truth—that they could never be together—all along. So why did she feel so disappointed now? Why was her heart so heavy with the truth? Just because she was attracted to the man didn’t mean they had a future together.

  She finally stood. She checked on Connor and then began pacing the living room.

  Maybe staying on this island wasn’t a good thing af
ter all. Now that she thought about it, all of this seemed like a bad, bad idea.

  But what exactly was she going to do about it?

  SIXTEEN

  Samantha woke up the next morning to the sound of someone knocking on her door. Apparently she had drifted to sleep again. She’d had bad dreams all night—dreams about Anthony, about getting shot, about Connor disappearing.

  She’d even had a dream about John. She couldn’t remember the details, only that they’d been facing each other and both had been crying.

  When she woke up the first time, her heart felt as though it had been broken. Her eyes even felt swollen, as if maybe she had actually been crying. Maybe she had been.

  She threw on her robe and hurried toward the door. The sunlight flooding in from outside assured her that it was daylight now, and that whoever was knocking on the door was probably safe.

  “It’s me. John.”

  With that final assurance, she opened the door.

  Her heart sped when she spotted her handsome boss standing there. Rusty sat beside him. “What’s going on?” She pulled her robe tighter.

  “The nor’easter has changed directions. We’ve got to batten down the hatches, so to speak, and get back to the mainland,” John said.

  Samantha looked beyond John at the ominous skies in the distance. A sharp wind raked through the area, sending a smattering of sand with it.

  “What can I do?” She pulled her hair away from her face, but the wind kept pushing it back.

  “Help me nail some boards over the windows. If Connor wouldn’t mind picking up anything stray from outside—chairs, boogie boards, sand pails, any of those things—that would be a huge help. Otherwise, they’ll be blown away.”

  “Got it.”

  “Rich had to take off this morning. He had a doctor’s appointment on the mainland. Said he’d been having some headaches since the explosion, so I told him he should have it checked out. Larry went with him. He said he needed to board up his house for when this storm hit. It’s just the two of us today.”

  “Got it.” She hurried back inside, woke Connor with no problems this time, and got ready. What awful timing for both Rich and Larry to be gone, but she understood their reasons.

  Apparently everyone in town was scrambling. The change of course put the storm here by tonight, but they would start feeling the effects even sooner. It wasn’t safe to take the small boat, so John told her people were cramming onto the ferries.

  She grabbed her cell phone and scrolled through her missed calls. Only a couple of people had this number, and that was only because she’d called them. She’d missed several—make that a lot—from Hank, her old boss. He’d also left some voice mails. One had come as recently as this morning.

  She hesitated before pushing Play. Her throat burned as she put the phone to her ear. Her boss’s voice came on the line. “Look, Samantha. I don’t know what’s going on or why you aren’t answering your phone. But you need to know that the police are looking for you. They think you had something to do with Lisa’s death. I know you better than that. I know you couldn’t ever take another life. I just wanted you to know. I hope you’re safe...wherever you are.”

  What? She’d been implicated...again?

  Panic filled her. Her lungs constricted. Her limbs trembled.

  She had to get out of here. Now.

  John’s phone call to his friend in Texas had probably done her in. Sure, John’s friend had said that Samantha had been cleared. But maybe all of that was a ruse. Maybe his friend had said that, all while getting his colleagues to come out and arrest her.

  She had to leave...now.

  But how would she get off this island without John? He’d want to go with her. He’d convince her that they should stay together. But that would only end with more people getting hurt. With John hurt.

  At that moment, someone pounded up the steps. John.

  He was probably checking to see what was taking her so long. She’d promised to help him board the windows. She stashed her suitcases out of sight before opening the door.

  Just seeing John standing there made her heart do a flip. She wished things had turned out differently between them. She wished life hadn’t happened to them before they met. Then maybe they would have had a chance.

  But there was nothing she could do to change any of that now.

  “Change of plans. I’ve got to head down to the docks,” John said. “The sheriff just called and said someone fell into the bay. They can’t find him and need my help.”

  She nodded. “Absolutely. Go.”

  His gaze tarried on her for a little longer than usual. He shifted, as though there was something he wanted to say but the words wouldn’t leave his lips. “I hate to leave you alone.”

  She waved him off. “There’s too much to do here. I’ll be okay.”

  He stared at her another moment. She could see the emotions in his eyes, how he was torn between doing right—two different rights: protecting her or helping someone else.

  “Samantha—”

  Something about the way he stood there indicated he wanted to say more than she could allow herself to hear. “We’ll talk later,” Samantha said. “There’s no time right now.”

  He finally nodded and took off in a jog.

  She leaned against the counter as he disappeared from sight. Her heart ached. Romance or not, she cared for John. The feelings had come quickly, but deeply. John Wagner was a good man. It was too bad circumstances weren’t different.

  But she had to think about her son. She had to do what was best for Connor and put aside her emotions for a moment. Nothing was more important than that boy.

  She scrambled to her room, knowing she had a small window of opportunity to make this plan work. She grabbed the suitcase.

  She wasn’t confident that this was the smartest decision she could make, but it was the only one that made sense at the moment. Running was the only thing she’d known to do since this whole ordeal had begun.

  She grabbed the spare set of keys to John’s boat. She’d watched him operate it before. She could figure out how to use it now.

  Despite John’s warning, she knew she could make it over to the mainland well before the storm got here. Then she and Connor would disappear...again.

  Stepping outside, the wind whipped around her. She shielded her eyes from the sun, which peeked through a dark patch of clouds. In the distance, she spotted Connor. After looking back once more to make sure John was gone, she called for her son. As he came running over, she started toward the pier.

  “What are you doing? Why do you have your suitcase?”

  “We’ve got to get out of here, Connor.” She prayed that he wouldn’t take this too hard, that he would accept her decision without much complaining and arguing. It was already hard enough.

  “Why? Because of the storm?”

  “Partly.” She kept walking, kept urging him to follow.

  Instead, he dug his heels into the sand and didn’t move. “I want Mr. John to come with us.”

  “He can’t come with us now.”

  “I don’t want to leave without him.” Connor crossed his arms.

  Samantha paused and bent down until face-to-face with her son. “He’ll leave in good time, Connor. He’ll be okay.”

  “I feel better when he’s around.” His chin quivered.

  Samantha’s heart thudded against her chest with a sore achiness. “I’m sorry, Connor.”

  The sadness disappeared and anger replaced the emotion. “You want to leave again, don’t you? This isn’t just because of the storm. We’re not ever coming back.”

  Her ache deepened. “Connor, bad people are after us,” she tried to explain.

  “I know.” He raised his chin.

  She blinke
d. “You do?”

  “I’m not stupid, Mom.” His hands went to his hips defiantly.

  “Connor...” she warned.

  His gaze softened slightly. “Well, I’m not. I know something’s wrong. But Mr. John can help.”

  She wished the solution were that easy, that simple. “Mr. John can’t fix this one.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “I don’t have to ask.” Because he’d tell me to stay. She kept that part silent.

  “Mom....” His eyes pleaded with her.

  Her hands went to his arms. She squeezed, praying that she could somehow get her point across. “I’m sorry, Connor. I really am. But I have to keep you safe, and sometimes that means making hard choices. This is one of them. We have to get out of here. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  “Are we ever coming back? Will I ever see Mr. John again?”

  Her heart squeezed so hard she thought it might burst. “I’m not sure.”

  His lips pulled downward, but finally he started walking. With each step, her anxiety grew. Please, God, give me wisdom. Because I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.

  They hadn’t reached the pier when someone called out behind her. “Samantha!”

  She slowly turned there on the sand and saw Derek, the travel reporter.

  What was he doing here? She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

  Samantha gripped her suitcase with one hand and Connor’s shoulder with the other. She forced a smile. “Yes?”

  Derek drew in ragged breaths, slightly bent over, and sweat covered his forehead. He almost appeared as if he’d run all the way here. “I’m looking for a ride off the island. I came to ask John if he was leaving early, but then I saw you.” He nodded toward the water. “It looks as though you’re heading out.”

  “That’s right.” She could hardly deny it. She had her suitcases in hand and was standing at the start of the pier.

  “Any chance I could catch a ride with you?” He pushed his glasses up higher.

  “That’s not a good idea.” She shook her head firmly. She had to keep moving. The storm was coming and fast.